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Monthly Archives: February 2012

I’m a huge fan of making your own compost and using your property’s naturally occurring resources to make mulch, fertilizers and soil amendments, but let’s face it, sometimes you have to buy stuff. I will show you what I like, and what has worked well for me.

There is a reason that tilling the soil was one of the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin and banishment from the garden of Eden. It’s backbreaking and hard, it makes the weeds grow even faster (again hard work pulling them) and it doesn’t even work very well. But, when you look at nature, at God’s garden, no one tills the soil. Part of my approach to gardening is to look at what God does, since He created plants and soil after all, and simply try to copy it. In this video, I explain why we all need to stop tilling the soil! Bonus: you get to watch riveting footage of dirt and listen to me ramble about soil structure.

I felt that I could make a major contribution to the world by starting another mediocre, inconsistent blog. I do love to write, but I also have a painfully long self editing process and a short attention span, which is basically a recipe for a post once every 8 weeks. If you need further proof of this, you can take a look at my other blog.

I’ve been wanting to start a desert gardening blog for a while now. When I started getting serious about gardening nearly 11 years ago, there was precious little locally relevant gardening information. If you are in a harsh desert climate, like I am, and you took advice offered by the typical gardening book, you’d experience a lot of failure and frustration. I know. I did. I still experience failure in my gardening endeavors, although I have stopped getting lured in by the hypnotic appeal of an English kitchen garden set against a moor in Yorkshire. That’s a pipe dream when you live in a place where you can literally fry an egg on the surface of the soil for about 5 months out of the year. But, just because you can’t skip through misty hillsides with a wry character named Dickon and an entourage of friendly woodland creatures doesn’t mean that gardening in a desert climate is an unworthy pursuit. Unlike the English Moorlands, we can grow food crops 365 days a year. Our soils, while alkaline, are very rich in trace minerals and micronutrients. Our dry air reduces the impact of fungal diseases that plague gardens in more humid parts of the country. And, we never have a shortage of sunshine. In fact, we have nearly 60% more UV light at our latitude then Northern gardens. In practical application, that means that you can grow full sun crops in partial or full shade. That adds up to lots of advantages.

All that said, I decided to start this video diary because while I feel encumbered at times by my compulsion to write, and rewrite, and rewrite…I’ll basically say the first thing that comes to my mind without that cumbersome verbal filter.

I was already talking to myself like this while I gardened…all I needed was a video camera. Can someone tell me why the neighbors always wave nervously and rush immediately into their house when I try to run across the street with some Borage to share?

I hope you will enjoy this journey with me and that you will be inspired to get out in your garden and try your hand at growing some food.

And, in the words of Adam Savage, star of the wildly popular show Mythbusters, “Failure is always an option!”

Valley Permaculture Alliance
When I have a question about my plants, chickens, pests or other issues, this is where I go first. A very generous community of knowledgeable people offering desert gardening advice.